CZECH UNIVERSITY OF LIFE SCIENCES PRAGUE Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences Department of Animal Science and Food Processing Influence of Common Eland (Taurotragus oryx) Meat Composition on its further Technological Processing DISSERTATION THESIS Prague 2018 Author: Supervisor: Ing. et Ing. Petr Kolbábek prof. MVDr. Daniela Lukešová, CSc. Co-supervisors: Ing. Radim Kotrba, Ph.D. Ing. Ludmila Prokůpková, Ph.D. Declaration I hereby declare that I have done this thesis entitled “Influence of Common Eland (Taurotragus oryx) Meat Composition on its further Technological Processing” independently, all texts in this thesis are original, and all the sources have been quoted and acknowledged by means of complete references and according to Citation rules of the FTA. In Prague 5th October 2018 ………..………………… Acknowledgements I would like to express my deep gratitude to prof. MVDr. Daniela Lukešová CSc., Ing. Radim Kotrba, Ph.D. and Ing. Ludmila Prokůpková, Ph.D., and doc. Ing. Lenka Kouřimská, Ph.D., my research supervisors, for their patient guidance, enthusiastic encouragement and useful critiques of this research work. I am very gratefull to Ing. Petra Maxová and Ing. Eva Kůtová for their valuable help during the research. I am also gratefull to Mr. Petr Beluš, who works as a keeper of elands in Lány, Mrs. Blanka Dvořáková, technician in the laboratory of meat science. My deep acknowledgement belongs to Ing. Radek Stibor and Mr. Josef Hora, skilled butchers from the slaughterhouse in Prague – Uhříněves and to JUDr. Pavel Jirkovský, expert marksman, who shot the animals. I am very gratefull to the experts from the Natura Food Additives, joint-stock company and from the Alimpex-maso, Inc. Finally, I wish to thank my family for the love, support and encouragement throughout my study. I am also grateful to my friends, who stayed by my side knowing that I had difficult times. This research was supported from the following grants, namely grants IGA-20165008 and 20175014 (Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences, Czech Republic) and "S grant" (Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of Czech Republic). I would like to dedicate this thesis to my son Tomáš. Abstract Eland (Taurotragus oryx) is a large African ruminant with suitable abilities for domestication and farming potential to produce lean meat. Therefore, evaluation of their response to enriched diet, carcass characteristics, effect of age and muscle on meat physical and chemical properties and technological parameters to be processed into meat products was studied. Carcass parametres, chemical and technological meat traits were studied as influenced by the effect of muscle and diet. Experiment investigating the effect of diet enriched in energy and fatty acids was performed in the first part. Ten young bulls were divided into two balanced groups, one with only standard bulk diet (n=5) and second supplemented with enriched diet (n=5). Animals with enriched diet, had higher content of the free pectoral suet (p=0.012), total suet (p=0.025), separable fat (p=0.002) and higher carcass yield (p=0.009). Meat of the animals with enriched diet had higher content of the fat (p=0.0291) and also showed significant interaction of the diet and muscle part (p=0.0007). Chemical and technological meat traits showed significant influence of the meat part (p<0.0001). Texture and colour characteristics evaluated on 25 animals showed signigicant effect of muscle (p<0.0001), redness (a*) showed also the effect of age (p=0.0063) and interaction those effecs (p<0.0001). Meat from older animals were more red. The most tough was m. sternomandibularis (404.67±12.80 N) and the most tender was m. longissimus thoracis et lumborum (48.08 ± 12.48 N). In the second part of the experiment, 12 liver pâté batches (4 varieties from fresh, 45 days frozen and 90 days frozen meat) were made and their organoleptic properties were evaluated by the panelits (n=35). Pâté batch made of the fresh eland meat and chicken liver received the best scores in the evaluated properties. Using of eland liver, or beef liver respectivelly, and also freezing of the material resulted into the worse scores. Enriched diet provided more energy for eland growth, but elands with enriched diet shoved just more reserve fat and not transformed extra energy gain into muscle growt. Eland meat can be considered as lean and nutritionally valuable meat suitable for culinary and meat processing. Key words: eland, enriched diet, carcass traits, meat traits, pâté, organoleptic properties Contents 1 INTRODUCTION AND LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................... 10 1.1 Breeding of Game Animals ................................................................................ 11 1.1.1 Game Farming .................................................................................................... 11 1.1.2 Origin and Description of the Eland ................................................................... 12 1.1.3 Breeding of Eland in Captivity ........................................................................... 13 1.2 Meat, Venison and its Properties ....................................................................... 14 1.2.1 Meat, Venison and its Consumption ................................................................... 14 1.2.2 Meat and Carcass Composition .......................................................................... 15 1.2.3 Technological Properties of Meat ....................................................................... 18 1.2.4 Meat Texture ....................................................................................................... 19 1.2.5 Meat Quality and Factors Influencing it ............................................................. 21 1.3 Common Eland and its Meat ............................................................................. 22 1.4 Game Meat Products .......................................................................................... 23 1.4.1 Slaughter and Maturing of Meat ......................................................................... 23 1.4.2 Meat Processing .................................................................................................. 25 1.4.3 Pâté Production ................................................................................................... 26 1.5 Sensory Analysis of Meat and Meat Products .................................................. 28 2 AIMS AND HYPOTHESES ................................................................................. 29 2.1 Carcass and Meat Traits of Eland ..................................................................... 29 2.2 Eland Meat Processing ....................................................................................... 30 3 MATERIALS AND METHODS .......................................................................... 31 3.1 Breeding of Elands in Captivity ......................................................................... 31 3.1.1 Description of the CULS Farm at Lány .............................................................. 31 3.1.2 Experimental Animals and Breeding Facilities .................................................. 31 3.2 Eland Slaughter and Carcass Evaluation ......................................................... 32 3.2.1 Slaughter of the Animal ...................................................................................... 32 3.2.2 Carcass Characteristics ....................................................................................... 32 3.3 Properties of Eland Meat .................................................................................... 33 3.3.1 Description of Used Chemical and Technological Analyses of Meat ................ 33 3.3.2 Chemical and Technological Characteristics of Eland meat .............................. 35 3.4 Processing of Eland Meat into Meat Product ................................................... 37 3.4.1 Raw Materials Used in the Experiment .............................................................. 37 3.4.2 Processing of the Pâté ......................................................................................... 38 3.4.3 Sensory Evaluation of Pâté Organoleptic Properties .......................................... 39 3.5 Statistical Data Analysis ..................................................................................... 40 4 RESULTS ............................................................................................................... 43 4.1 Carcass and Meat Characteristics ..................................................................... 43 4.1.1 Carcass Characteristics ....................................................................................... 43 4.1.2 Meat Characteristics ........................................................................................... 46 4.2 Texture and Colour of Eland Meat ................................................................... 53 4.3 Eland Meat Processing ....................................................................................... 56 4.3.1 Consumers’ Relations to Pâtés ........................................................................... 56 4.3.2 Sensory Evaluation of Pâté Organoleptic Properties .......................................... 57 5 DISCUSSION ......................................................................................................... 61 5.1 Carcass and Meat Characteristics ..................................................................... 61 5.1.1 Carcass